The Zona (18 page)

The rising sun forced Terence and Lead to hike in the shade of the Jacaranda forest.  The ex-Preachers searched for signs of active men and civilization, foregoing their usual daytime sleep. Miles ahead a tower of light stood inexplicable.  The men walked towards it, though neither speculated as to its cause or material.  On approach the source of light became clear; it was a telephone pole displaced to the center a pasture and coated in shards of reflective mirror.  It stood fifteen feet over the men and fired the morning’s light in a thousand directions.

“This has to mean something!”  Lead said.

Terence observed in thoughtful silence, as was often his way.

The ground erupted into clouds of dust.  The ex-Preachers were suddenly surrounded by men coated in mud and dead grass.  Terence and Lead turned back to back, Lead gripped the handle of his knife and Terence pulled his Van Cleef from his knapsack.

“Stay your hand, Preacher,” a strong voice commanded.

Six men stood around the ex-Preachers and light tower as though summoned from the very earth.  The leader swung a charged crossbow to his shoulder in a rifle stance; another man leveled a rust-speckled revolver to Lead’s face.  The wild men reeked of soil and looked more animal than human.  Each was brimming with stone-tipped javelins and belt clubs to augment the threat of homemade or antiquated firearms.  The leader was ornamented by a string of human ears around his neck.  Each ear held a jeweled earring, which twinkled in the sun to match the light tower.

Terence pointed his gun at the ground.

“We’re no Preachers,” Terence said.

“Who are you, then?”  The leader asked.

“My name is Terence Wood, this is Lead.  Have you heard of me?”

“Aye,” said the leader, “I know of you, there are people in my city who have spoken your name.”

Terence smiled in relief.  He released the hammer of his pistol and slipped it into his knapsack.

“Can you take me to New Pueblo?”  Terence asked.

He looked to Lead and remembered his omission.

“I’m sorry.  Can you take us to New Pueblo?”

The leader lowered his crossbow.  His men lowered their arms.

“It is an honor to meet you and any of your company, Terence Wood,” the leader said.

“Please follow us into the trees, we must talk in cover and we have not much time.”

Terence and Lead looked at each other, the unanswered question hung heavy between them.  They followed the wild men into the darkness of the forest, the winged seeds crunched under their feet.  Two of the wild men stayed in the pasture to collapse the light tower.

“Can you take us to New Pueblo?”  Lead asked.

The party stopped.  The leader turned to Lead.  He peered through the ex-Preacher with eyes like gun metal.

“No,” the leader said.  “You cannot enter New Pueblo.”

Terence and Lead moved to speak but were silenced by the leader’s raised hand.

“We’ve been monitoring you since last night.  You were followed here.  There are two men on foot, armed and armored, three miles up the highway.  A third man keeps their horses further back.”

Terence balled his hands into fists.

“Those men are hunting us, you must give us sanctuary!”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Wood.  I understand your concern, but you have brought dangerous men to my house.  You will not enter New Pueblo in the eyes of Church agents.”

“What do we do, then!?”

Terence punched the side of his leg.

“What do we do!?”

The leader kept his calm demeanor.

“That’s up to you.  You are not coming to New Pueblo with followers.  My people will not be endangered.  You will not lead trackers to New Pueblo.  I’m sorry.”

The leader cut the air with his palm and the wild men silently retreated into the forest.  The leader grasped Terence’s shoulder.

“I know you are a good man, Terence Wood.  I will accept you and any friend of yours into New Pueblo.”

The leader nodded at Lead.

“But to enter here is to enter clean; you must be free of the world outside.  Resolve your problems, or leave forever.”

“I understand,” Terence said.

Terence’s face was a red mask of rage.  His eyes were murderous.

“We’ll come back clean,” Terence said.

The leader grasped Terence’s wrist, nodded, and then silently vanished into the forest.

Terence walked back to the Highway Nineteen, to the center of the road.  He closed his eyes to the afternoon sun and faced north.  Terence stood motionless.  He opened his eyes and scanned the distance for movement, for signs of trackers.

“What do we do?”  Lead asked.

Terence sat in the road and crossed his legs.   He pulled his Van Cleef from the knapsack and removed each of its four bullets.  He took to polishing a barrel with the scrap of an old shirt.

“What do we do?”  Lead asked again.

“I don’t know, Lead!  What are our options!?”  Terence’s voice was tired, angry.  “What are our options?  Walk more?  Let our bodies run out of moisture while we eat bugs and drink cactus pulp?  Wander into New Mexico and pray we don’t stumble through a radioactive zone?  I’m an old man, Lead!  How much time do I have?

“I don’t know,” Lead whispered.

“I don’t either, so I’m going to sit here and wait for them. And when they come, I’ll convince them to go away, or let them finish me, or add the sin of more killings to my soul!”

Terence tilted sunlight through the four barrels of his pistol.  He reloaded the bullets and clicked the barrels back into place.  Lead walked from the tree line to the middle of the road.  He sat next to Terence.

“You’re welcome to leave,” Terence said.  “If we divide they may be forced to divide as well.  Even if they don’t split up, one of us could occupy their group while the other gets a head start, maybe a couple hours.”

Lead smiled for the first time in a long time.  He saw the futility of their situation.  Once more, he was without real choices.

“You know, I don’t really have anywhere else to go.”

Lead took the last piece of jerky from his plastic bag.  He set the bag on the street and watched the wind take it away.

“You think we’re going to die here?”  Lead asked.

“I’d say there’s a pretty good chance of it.”  Terence said.

Terence’s lips drew tight and colorless.  “I guess here’s as good a place to end as any.”

Lead chewed his jerky.  The salt stung the malnutrition blossoms in his mouth.  The wind slid the grocery bag down the street; winged seeds took to the air again and floated past the ex-Preachers.

“If you could choose, where would you die?”  Lead asked.

“That’s easy,” Terence said.  “The day the tsunamis hit San Diego, when I lost my wife and son.  I wish I had taken the day off from work.  I’d wake up first and watch them rise.  I would surprise them with breakfast at the Park Café, near the zoo.  Christine loved their banana and brown sugar pancakes, which she would have ordered and shared with Johnny.  I would have ordered eggs over medium with wheat toast and coffee with cream and sugar.  We’d eat breakfast together and walk home. The café was only a block away, but it was a lush, grassy part of town.  It’d be raining, so Christine and I would be holding each other while we walked under my umbrella.  Johnny liked the rain, so he’d be splashing puddles in his blue galoshes, and we’d have to towel him off when we got back to the apartment.  Christine and I would get settled in, turn on the television, and share a glass of shiraz. You know, I haven’t found a single intact bottle of shiraz in all my journeys since the Storms.  We’d share a glass and we wouldn’t talk.  We’d just hold each other and watch Johnny play on the carpet, and let the television talk to itself.  Sometime near noon, we’d all go to my king sized bed and lay down for a nap.  I’d fall asleep holding Christine and Johnny and the three of us would drift into the oblivion together.  We would never wake, or if we did, it’d be together in the hereafter.”

Terence took a deep breath and slowly let it out.

“I should have gone with them and skipped all this fucking nonsense.”

Terence rose to his feet and yelled to the north.

“Did you hear that!?  This is all fucking nonsense!  The Church, the Zona, the Preachers and goodmen, sins and laws, it’s all fucking nonsense!”

Terence sat back down in the street. He shoved his pistol back into the knapsack and rubbed his sleeve across his nose.  He looked self-consciously at Lead.

“Sorry,” Terence said.

“Where would you die if you had the choice?”

Lead was thoughtful for long minutes.  His mind drifted in the formation of his narrative.

“I think I would have died with my mom in the fugee camp.  Not how she died. She died burning with plague and seeing men and shapes that were not there.  I would have liked to have died with her, but with me having the pneumonia.  A healer in Flagstaff once told me dying of pneumonia is like slipping into a pool of warm water.  That sounds alright, as far as dying goes.

Maybe I should have died in Vegas.  I’ve seen things that I wish I’d never seen on the road, crucifixion, butchery, men feeding on men.  The fugee camp was a horror show too, but I had never been part of anything as ugly as Vegas.  Everything changed with Vegas.  If I’d been closer to downtown, the nukes would have dusted me.  I imagine that’s a relatively quick and painless way to go.”

“I like my answer better.”  Terence said with a smile.

“Yeah, I like your answer better,” Lead said.

Terence scavenged the trees for dry wood and tinder.  He dug a fire pit between slabs of asphalt.

“Do you think they’ll come tonight?”  Lead asked.

“I don’t know.  They’ll come at us at night; I just don’t know which night.”  Terence dumped his twigs in the pit and went to collect more.  

Eliphaz observed the ex-Preachers with his field glasses. He handed the glasses to his assistant.

“They know about us.  The wood Indians must have tipped them off,” Eliphaz said.  “I suppose there’ll be little surprise in our confrontation.”

The assistant placed the field glasses back in their case. He knew better than to speak to Eliphaz.

Time shifted in its constant worldly crawl.  The sun drifted behind the trees and blessed the earth with color and receded to darkness, leaving the ex-Preacher’s campfire to take up the burden of providing light.  Terence and Lead sat in front of the fire and waited.  The moon had yet to make its appearance and the darkness outside of their fire was absolute.  The ex-Preachers sat in silence, listening for the inevitable.

Lead woke to the sound of gravel popping underfoot; he suddenly realized he’d been asleep.  Exhaustion and the stillness of night and the hypnotic hum of locusts had turned his body against his will.  He had drifted off and now the camp fire was burning low.  Danger was present.

Lead scanned the darkness for the source of the noise.  He saw Terence slumped over onto the street, the firelight reflected off the tarp wrapped about his body.  Terence breathed the shallow breath of sleep.  Lead heard another pop from the darkness.  He reached into his jacket pocket and gripped the handle of his knife.

A chunk of asphalt whistled in flight and struck Lead above the eye; he yelled as a camouflaged soldier leapt out of the darkness and tackled Lead to the ground.